Project 2025 Calls for Replacing 40-Hour Workweek with 160-Hour Work Month? (2024)

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In August 2024, as the U.S. presidential election drew nearer, allegations spread online claiming Project 2025 — a conservative coalition's plan for a future Republican administration — sought to reduce the frequency of employers having to pay employees higher wages for working overtime by calling for a change in the way work hours are counted (archived):

One X post by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, which had amassed more than 1.5 million views as of this writing, read: "Project 2025 would change the 40hr workweek to a 160hr work-month, so your boss could make you work extra hours with no overtime pay by cutting your hours later in the month."

Similar claims also appeared on TikTok, garnering more than 205,000 views (archived), and Threads.

All three posts referred to page 592 of the Project 2025 "playbook," titled: "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise."

The third bullet point on page 592 did indeed discuss extending the overtime period "over a longer number of weeks." It read:

Congress should provide flexibility to employers and employees to calculate the overtime period over a longer number of weeks.

Specifically, employers and employees should be able to set a two- or four-week period over which to calculate overtime. This would give workers greater flexibility to work more hours in one week and fewer hours in the next and would not require the employer to pay them more for that same total number of hours of work during the entire period.

But, the Project 2025 "playbook" did not explicitly state a 160-hour work-month should be imposed on employers and employees. Rather, it said Congress should give companies and their staffs the flexibility, i.e., the option, to adopt such a model.

The "playbook" also recommended "two- or four week" periods over which to calculate overtime, not just a 160-hour work-month.

However, given the crux of the claim was accurate, we rated it "Mostly True."

How Is Overtime Currently Calculated?

As of this writing, the overtime period is based on a 40-hour workweek, per the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL):

Covered nonexempt employees must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 per workweek (any fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours – seven consecutive 24-hour periods) at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay. There is no limit on the number of hours employees 16 years or older may work in any workweek. The FLSA does not require overtime pay for work on weekends, holidays, or regular days of rest, unless overtime is worked on such days.

In other words, overtime is currently calculated as any time worked in excess of 40 hours in a 168-hour period (seven full consecutive days). It should be paid at least 1.5 times the normal hourly rate. For example, if an employee who is subject to overtime receives $8 per hour within their normal 40 hours, then they should be paid at least $12 per hour (1.5 times more than $8 p/h) from their 41st hour of work that week.

What Is Project 2025's Proposal for Overtime Periods?

Project 2025 proposed that companies and their employees should be free to calculate working hours across either 14 days (336 hours) or 28 days (672 hours), rather than just seven days (168 hours). Without increasing work hours overall, this means there would be either 80 working hours over 14 days or 160 working hours over 28 days.

Therefore, in an 80-hour setting, if an employee worked 45 hours one week and 35 hours the next, they would not be paid overtime for the extra five hours worked the first week, because the total over two weeks would amount to 80 hours.

The argument was this would not cost the company more money and the employee would benefit from flexible hours over the two or four weeks. However, overtime would start to apply from the 81st hour worked over the two weeks.

This model could also apply to 160 working hours over four weeks. For example, an employee might work 80 hours the first week, zero hours the second, another 80 hours the third and zero the fourth, and not receive any overtime, despite working for 80 hours in the first and third weeks. The schedules might see larger variations from week to week, but so long as the worked hours add up to 160 a month, staff would not receive overtime. It would only kick in from the 161st hour worked over four weeks.

Snopes has reported on Project 2025 extensively. In July 2024, we published an overview of the conservative blueprint. We wrote about its views on U.S. families and looked at its plan for a military entrance exam for all U.S. high school students. Finally, we also examined its plan to kill the U.S. Department of Education.

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